Objective Overview

Implement DNS requirements for Load Balancer integration according to a deployment plan

Install certificates on each relevant vRA component in standard and distributed model

Configure SSO Identity Source for use with vRealize Automation

Configure components using FQDN via CNAME definitions before load balancer is available

Configure SMTP notifications

Objective Prerequisites

None.

Objective Breakdown

Implement DNS requirements for Load Balancer integration according to a deployment plan

For this section, you will need to ensure that you have the appropriate DNS A Record(s) in place for all of the components and the Load Balanced VIPs. This includes both forward (name to IP) and reverse (IP to name) lookup.

I wont be covering the manual steps to create a DNS Forward or Reverse Lookup Zone here (there are plenty of posts on the internet that do this). However below is example PowerShell code I use to create this as part of a DNS configuration script to do this.

Configure components using FQDN via CNAME definitions before load balancer is available

During the installation (and troubleshooting) of a vRealize Automation 6.x Distributed Install, it can be advisable to configure DNS CNAME Record(s) to help discount any Load Balancing issues. After all it is always the network right?

Therefore, rather than initially creating DNS A Record(s) for a Load Balancer with its own IP address you would create a DNS CNAME Record and point it to the Primary component in that tier, whether that be vRealize Automation Appliance, vRealize Automation IaaS Web Service, vRealize Automation IaaS Manager Service or vRealize Orchestrator. As an example, with the following Server DNS A Record(s)

Before the Load Balancer is active/deployed, you would create a DNS CNAME Record for the VIP address, as follows:

Giving you three DNS entries for you to start the build of vRealize Automation 6.x

Once the build is completed and the Load Balancer is in place and properly configured you would remove the DNS CNAME Records and replace them with DNS A Record(s) for the Load Balancer as below:

Configure SMTP notifications

The configuration of SMTP notification occurs in two main stages:

Configure the Default Tenant

Configure the Default Email Server

Configure the SMTP Notifications

Subscribe to Notifications

Configure the Default Tenant

The reason we need to configure the at least the Default Tenant is we need to be a Tenant Administrator to be able to activate SMTP Notification.